Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS 2017

From the 12th to 14th of June 2017, the Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS again took place in Schloss Ort in Gmunden with more than 40 participants from Europe and North America.

The event started with a training course where participants could present their research ideas and then get feedback by senior scholars of the field. As known and valued by recurring participants of the conference, everyone then had a chance to get to know each other during a welcome dinner at Seehotel Schwan before the actual conference kicked off with paper presentations in the morning. Due to the wonderful weather, for the second time, participants had the opportunity to go to Schloss Ort by boat schuttle which was an appreciated deviation from the bus rides that most conference goers are used to by now. Also, this gave new participants the opportunity to get an overview of the area and learn why the conference is actually called a „retreat“.

Digital Business researchers at the Conference

During the next two days, a total of 24 research papers were presented, covering such topics as recommendation engines, browsing preferences, process management, e-commerce, idea selection, or interaction with conversational agents. Particularly decision-making and related cognitive load were recurring topics in the presentations this year with the suggestion being made several times that neuro-adaptive systems (i.e., systems that dynamically adapt based on neurophysiological signals) will be the future in this area. Importantly, the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria was not only a co-organizer of the event this year, with Prof. Dr. René Riedl being one of the Conference Co-Chairs, but two presentations were contributed by researcher of the department of Digital Business (Steyr). On the first day of the conference, Thomas Fischer presented key facts on blood pressure measurement and suggested its more frequent use in technostress research and on the second day Melanie Schreiner presented preliminary results of a pilot study which focused on the IAT (Implicit Associations Test) as an alternative to self-reports on individual brand impressions.

Group picture of all participants of the Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS 2017

Keynotes and Dr. Hermann Zemlicka Award

In addition to the paper presentations, two senior scholars gave keynote speeches on the first day. Tobias Kalenscher (Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf) talked about the potential of theories that can not only explain decision-making in humans, but across species. He suggested that we can profit from the insights that have been gained during animal experiments, without having to directly involve humans at first. In the afternoon, Gernot Müller-Putz (TU Graz) then talked about Electroencephalography (EEG), how the technique works and what we should take into consideration when choosing the setup for our own experiments. He also briefly stated that non-clinical devices that are currently becoming more popular could help by drawing more attention to the potential application areas of this technique, but in an experimental environment they should be used with caution.

Another highlight of the conference was a boat trip on lake Traunsee to the Hois’n Wirt where participants enjoyed a conference dinner and witnessed the Dr. Hermann Zemlicka Award being awared to the most visionary of this year’s 24 papers. Its recipient, Dr. Bin Mai from the University of Texas at Austin encouraged others to also give their best in order to win the award in the future. Being a second-time participant, it was particularly fascinating to see the progress of the research group around Dr. Mai, who had presented their ideas on neuroscience and information systems last year while presenting the initial results of a full-fledged EEG study this year.

Ten Years of NeuroIS research

There was also a special reason for celebration this year as the field of „Neuro-Information-Systems“ or short „NeuroIS“ was founded ten years ago at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2007 in Montréal (Canada). For this particular occasion, there was a panel discussion with senior scholars and NeuroIS veterans in the morning of the second day of the retreat. Fred Davis, Alan Hevner, Pierre-Majorique Léger, and Peter Walla, with moderation by Jan vom Brocke, discussed the current status of the field, challenges, opportunities and what the future of NeuroIS should look like.

We hope that all participants enjoyed the retreat and we hope to see many of them again next year. Further information on the NeuroIS field and the Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS can be obtained from NeuroIS.org.

Proceedings:Information Systems and Neuroscience – Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS 2017
Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation
– available in fall this year –

NeuroIS Research in Steyr

Prof. Dr. René Riedl

Prof. Dr. René Riedl is a professor for digital business and innovation and since 2013 he is part of the department for „Digital Business“ at the University of Applied Sciences in Steyr. He is one of the founders of the field of NeuroIS (www.NeuroIS.org), a sub-domain of information systems research. Research of René Riedl has been published in some of the most high-ranking IS journals such as MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Journal of Information Technology.